It must get trickier if you’re say an air-ambulance or sea-plane pilot.
not really, at least here in czech rep. My PPL instructor is also czech police ambulance and rescue heli pilot.
His typical logbook records looks like:
From: LKPR
To: LKPR
Number of landings: 3 (first at crash site, 2nd at hospital, 3rd back at base..)
P.S. I thought almost all US strips had a code – all on the maps seem to have one.
Privately owned airports shown on US charts typically don’t have airport identifier codes, but may none-the-less be open for public use or pre-approved use.
… departure and arrival times … That’s for the pilot logbook (which has no places for these anyway)
Mine has. For commercial flying, these times are quite important because you are required to observe flight duty and rest times! BTW: The only time I ever needed to show my logbook to somebody was in the United States 
(But as was pointed out in another post, I was there for a type rating).
In 45 years of flying I have never logged a departure or arrival time, it is not required
That’s for the pilot logbook (which has no places for these anyway) but I think a journey log needs to contain the two times.
EASA Part FCL.050 simply requires you to record the place and time of departure and arrival
Not quite: FCL.050 actually delegates the logging requirements to National Authorities. In the UK that is Article 79
FCL.050 Recording of flight time
The pilot shall keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown in a form and manner established by the competent authority.
In 45 years of flying I have never logged a departure or arrival time, it is not required. As for ICAO codes who knows where they are, so use names, abreviations, whatever you like.
My logbook has only names – DX for home airport (Dalcross, Inverness) and including Hanksville (Not KHVE), Green River, (Utah, not KU34, although it could be confused with Green River, Wyoming) in the US, and in Scotland, Solas, which is a beach on a Scottish island, and farm names with no ICAO code.
P.S. I thought almost all US strips had a code – all on the maps seem to have one.
EASA Part FCL.050 simply requires you to record the place and time of departure and arrival using either the full name or the 3 or 4 character code.
It’s a bit difficult getting something like ‘Hinton-in-the-Hedges’ in the space provided in the standard log book column.
Using flight plan type codes is probably the tidiest way of doing it i.e. ZZZZ in the column and DEP:xxxxx or DEST:xxxxx in the remarks. But as long as the information is there in some form, it doesn’t really matter.
It must get trickier if you’re say an air-ambulance or sea-plane pilot.
Here in the US, we are not required to log a flight in a logbook unless it is used to satisfy a requirement for currency or for a rating. The main prohibition is to not put something in the logbook that is false. A good number of US airports do not have ICAO identifiers. Regardless, if one is required to make a logbook entry, the location where the aircraft departed or arrived is part of the log entry. I can log it as Charlotte Douglas International Airport, CLT, or KCLT, who cares, not the US government.
Yes – AFAIK you can write what you like in your logbook. You could write your 747 to Florida passenger trips in there. It’s 100% legal. I know a guy who writes his passenger time in his logbook. The pilot logbook is your property and you could write your speed dating successes in there.
It’s just that you can’t use such time towards licenses/ratings that need the hours.
Just write in the name, end of story.
